The latest report showed that university leaders, faculty and staff either missed or ignored red flags that could have put a stop to the problem years earlier, WJLA reports. At least 3,100 students — half of them athletes — benefited from fake classes and grades that were artificially inflated in the former African and Afro-American Studies department (AFAM) in Chapel Hill.
Kenneth Wainstein, a former U.S. Justice Department official, indicated in the report that the sham classes ended in 2011. The university has since been in damage control, overhauling the department and implementing new policies. Now it also has to wait to find out if the destructive new details will cause more problems with the agency that accredits the university. The NCAA has also reopened its investigation of academic misconduct and may well have concerns regarding lack of institutional control.
“Bad actions of a relatively few number of people were definitely compounded by inaction and the lack of really appropriate checks and balances,” Chancellor Carol Folt said Thursday, per WJLA. “And it was together that really allowed this to persist for such a length of time.”
The problems outlined in the report were shocking, and it outlined the clear involvement of athletic counselors who pushed athletes into the bogus classes. The classes, which ran from 1993–2011, didn’t require any attendance and only required a research paper that received A’s and B’s with absolutely no regard for quality, and a cursory review frequently performed by a secretary who also signed the chairman’s name to grade rolls.
The university is also in the middle of trying to fire a senior professor and has accepted the resignation of another faculty member. Additionally, an academic counselor for athletes has been dismissed. All of this stems from their roles in this scandal, campus officials said Wednesday, USA Today reports.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill began its efforts to fire Jeanette Boxill, a professor of philosophy and a former faculty leader last October, the day that the scathing report came out, Folt said in a statement. Boxill is appealing Folt’s decision, USA Today reports.
Folt decided to name Boxill “in light of the extraordinary circumstances underlying the longstanding and intolerable academic irregularities described in the Wainstein report, as well as her role as chair of the faculty council during a period of time covered by the report.”
David Parker, a lawyer at the campus, disclosed that Timothy McMillan has resigned after 17 years at the university, USA Today reports. McMillan was a senior lecturer in the Department of African, African American and Diaspora Studies, the renamed department that developed a pattern of no-show classes and generous grades that was overseen by a retired administrator and a retired chairman.
Academic counselor Jaimie Lee was also terminated, Parker said, and the conduct of six other campus employees is currently being reviewed for potential disciplinary action.
Those who are disciplined will be identified, he added.
Boxill advised and directed women’s basketball players to take the fake courses, and at least twice tried to influence the grades that were given to students. She also acknowledged sometimes editing student papers, Wainstein’s report indicated, per USA Today.
The report also stated that McMillan “effectively knew what was happening (with the fake classes), even if he was careful not to learn all of the details.”
In October, four employees at the campus were fired and five others were disciplined for their roles in the academic fraud scheme. Tom Ross, who is president of the 16-campus state university system, said that he is taking “action involving an individual formerly employed on this campus, now employed at another UNC campus.”
USA Today reports that Boxill and McMillan did not reply to phone messages seeking comment.
